Video Blog: Where Can Restaurants Best Control Cost or Cut Cost?

Video Blog

This video is part of a series of videos where I, Jonathan Munsell, answer questions and offer hard hitting comments that you can use to improve your restaurant immediately!

If you are seeing this you probably don’t need to go to RestaurantGoldMine.com to get hooked up with me. If you are not already a member of Restaurant Success System or Restaurant Success Monthly a good place to start is by grabbing some FREE information by clicking HOME and then click on the Free Kit Image to the right.

Where Can Restaurants Best Control Cost or Cut Cost?

Hey it’s Jonathan Munsell with Restaurant Success Systems.  I wanted to talk about a question that I get asked fairly often and it’s something that we all need to be conscious of and it has to do with cutting costs.

I always getting asked, “Where’s the best place for a restaurant to cut costs?” and it’s always an odd question for me because I know that traditionally it stems off of profitability so the first thing I always do is when I talk with restaurant owners is talk about their prime costs.  Where are your food costs coming in?  Where is your labor costs coming in?  What does that look like when you roll those two together, adding your payroll taxes and adding your workers’ compensation because you should take the time to map this out and actually check it for yourself to see if the numbers work.

You take your labor, you take your food costs, you take your payroll taxes and your workers’ compensation, and you roll that number together and you divide that by your sales.  Highly Profitable restaurants traditionally run around 60% or better.  The more you can drive that number, you’ll find the better and more profitable you are.  I think it would be difficult to get to far below 50%.  Maybe there are some restaurants out there, but traditionally hours and dollars and sales are affected by your labor and all that stuff getting tied together.

We use a schedule by sales dollars and we actually know by how many dollars in sales in our restaurants how many people we should have.  So the first place to start when you’re looking at cutting costs is:

1)         Are your prime costs in check?

As long as your prime costs are in check, then you can manage those and that’s a number that you focus on and you manage it and we manage it weekly.  We have systems and tools that we use and we do an inventory every single week and it’s actually very simple if you have it organized and we have a financial summary that we use and it’s available to all the members of Restaurant Success Systems.

But besides that, even if you’re just calculating on a monthly basis, make sure you manage those numbers.

2)         The other thing you start to look at is you look at all the other costs.

Are you getting the best utility rates, are you using the right paper products?  I actually have in The Restaurant Success System a Cost Control Manual.  I have over 500 ways that you can cut costs in a restaurant.  Everything matters.  Everything costs money; everything that we do from the paper napkin that goes in the to-go bag to the dollars that we spend on marketing.

But I think the place to start is make sure your prime costs are in line and then literally go line by line down your P&L and figure out what’s going in there and exactly what you’re spending and if there’s opportunity.

Cost-cutting is a solution traditionally one time and you can only cut so far.  It’s not like you can come back and do it again in six months because the biggest thing that you don’t want to do is you don’t want to effect the quality and you don’t want to effect what the people are used to, meaning your guests.

So be cautious in your cost-cutting.  I think we all can tighten our belts, even myself and I have.  As time goes on we always look at ways to save money.  But at the end of the day don’t cut so far that you actually jeopardize your business.

But look at your prime costs, analyze your P&Ls, and go through and figure out things that maybe you can knock down.  Even if you’re able to cut some things down by 10%, that would really help you.

If you enjoyed this video and you’d like to receive 20 more of the top questions that people ask me about the restaurant business, and you can also get a copy of my free report, How to Make any Restaurant into a Super-Powerful Cash Machine, which has ten secrets not included in any of the videos about the characteristics of a successful restaurant owner, go to www.restaurantgoldmine.com.

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Want A Simple To Follow System To Improve Your Restaurant Sales?

Want A Simple To Follow System To Improve Your Restaurant Sales?

Every Year I right Goals and Objectives with my team and managers.  Recently we were looking at our successes (Up 41% Year To Date).  One big thing jumped out at us. It was the fact that we were religiously following an exacting system that we created to maximize our sales.

I want to share with you our Restaurant Sales Building System and I encourage you to S&D it (Swipe and Deploy it). It is not pretty and may even come across as hieroglyphics for some of you. Others that have heard me speak will appreciate the cut to the chase approach.  I am going to talk through the entire system in detail on my next Super Performers Call open to my members.  But for those of you that want to have a peek I encourage you to take a look..

Our Philosophy is “A Sale To Get A Guest for Life” not a customer to get a sale

Example:

Person walks into “My Restaurant” for the first time

We WOW them, communicate to them what we are about

We serve them a product and experience far superior to that of any and ALL competitors

We get them to enrolled in our club

The club keeps them engaged

• Welcome Card – Free Fries & Drink
• Weekly Emails
  • Standard Overview Email 1^st &15^th
  • Specific Emails in between

  Communicate Promotions and Specials “What’s New”, speak from the heart – This is what we cover in our Restaurant Marketing Planner

• Birthday mailer
• ½ Birthday mailer
• Anniversary mailer
• Reward Certificates

Quarterly Manual Mailers to our list “Small Post Cards”

Quarterly Lost Customer Campaign

What we do to get them in the door for that first time

• Signage outside
• Street Signage on Weekends
• New Mover Mailers (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Cold Mailers (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Monthly Newsletters (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Quarterly Money Mailer, newspaper or Advo
• JV Deals (Apartment, Businesses, etc)
• Hotel Advertising

Our Goal Is Every new Customer is in Our Club so they become Guests for Life
Our Club does the majority of the heavy lifting
Automation – Removing the Human Element has been the key to consistent sales growth  Click here to obtain details on our loyalty program

We must spend the business hours working to constantly and consistently improve our sales
~Engage Guests, Apartment Complexes, Local JV opportunities, Churches

That’s it in a nut shell.  Restaurant Success System has all the components mentioned above and much much more.  We can get you up to speed very quickly and demystify what it means to have a true system that basically takes care of your restaurant marketing and gives you huge returns.

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North Carolina Restaurateur, Jonathan Munsell, Wins Top 50 Entrepreneur Award for 2010

Don’t tell Jonathan I posted this, I also sent out a press release on it (I think he was trying to keep it low key, oh well!)

Susan Roseman
Office Manager & Jonathan’s Executive Assistant
Restaurant Success System

North Carolina Restaurateur Wins Top 50 Entrepreneur Award for 2010

Jonathan Munsell is being honored with one of the Top 50 Entrepreneurs of 2010 by Business Leader Magazine. “The Top 50 Entrepreneur ranking is both humbling and gratifying,” said Jonathan Munsell.
Business Leader Magazine provides critical local market intelligence to CEOs and other business leaders. Published monthly since 1989, the magazine covers the companies, leaders and business happenings. The magazine features editorial on the legal, financial, technology, management, marketing, and business services industries and highlights top women in business, up-and-coming leaders, top 100 small businesses and top entrepreneurs.

Jonathan Munsell is the founder and owner of Restaurant Success System Inc, a national restaurant consultancy company based in Raleigh, NC where he offers professional guidance to current and aspiring restaurant owners regarding restaurant startup, growth, operations, marketing and finance. Restaurant Success System Inc. has been Jonathan’s way of repaying the restaurant industry with which he has been integrally associated since the age of 15 – right from working in sub shops to managing restaurants like The Ritz Carlton, Restaurant Associates, and Compass Group, to his own restaurant development companies, Amazing Brands (responsible for North Carolina favorites such as Jumpin’ Jonny’s Steaks & Subs, BakeHouse Bistro and Premiere Catering) and now Restaurant Success System.

Throughout his 25 year career, Jonathan has yielded commendable results for his clients in terms of boosting sales volumes and handling several levels of management reports, and staff counts in the hundreds.  Jonathan’s unique combination of first-class training in both restaurant management and culinary expertise has made him a nationally recognized expert in the food business. He has literally transformed the restaurant business through his innovative and creative ideas and methods that have successfully enabled other restaurant owners to reach their optimum potential levels and boost their profitability, while giving equal attention to the public needs.

The goal of Restaurant Success System has been to share ideas, presentations and experiences that will help newcomers as well as those who have been in the business for a while to learn new ways to increase their Sales and Profits.  For more information about the Restaurant Success System or Jonathan Munsell, go to www.RestaurantSuccessMonthly.com.

Let’s All make Comments and Really Embarrass him!

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Restaurant workers are starved of benefits, report says

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 11, 2010

Despite the recession, the restaurant industry is thriving. Many of its workers, however, are not.

A new report from the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), a nonprofit organization that advocates better wages and work conditions for restaurant workers, revealed that 90 percent of industry staff members are not offered health insurance or sick days, 67 percent go to work sick, and 38 percent are forced to work off the clock.

Earnings also lag. Restaurant workers around the country on average made $12,868 in 2008 compared with $45,371 in the general private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The authors surveyed more than 2,500 workers and 150 employers in five cities: Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, New York and Portland, Maine.

The reports tell two big stories, said Jose Oliva, ROC’s national policy coordinator: “One, the restaurant industry is resilient, even in the face of this Great Recession. The other is that the kind of jobs that are being created are not the kind of jobs we want to have in America when we come out of the recession.”

Restaurants took a hit during the economic downturn. But by July 2009, growth had returned. This year, the National Restaurant Association projects that the industry will employ nearly 13 million people. Revenues will rise 2.5 percent to $580 billion, or 4 percent of the gross domestic product.

“This report paints a distorted image of the restaurant industry and its employees while pushing the ROC’s agenda,” said Mike Donohue, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association. He cited data that showed 32 percent of adults get their first job experience in a restaurant, and many jobs lead to management and ownership. “The restaurant industry is proud of its diversity and unparalleled record of opportunity.”

The industry does provide some “good jobs,” which ROC defines as ones that pay a living wage, provide benefits and offer opportunities for advancement. But researchers found that white workers disproportionately claimed them. Workers of color, meanwhile, were concentrated in “bad jobs,” where the median hourly wage was $11.50 per hour — or $3.20 less per hour than their white counterparts earned.

When it comes to waiters and busers, the federal minimum wage is $2.13; there has not been an increase since 1991. In May, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) introduced the WAGES Act, which would increase it to $3.75 per hour three months after enactment. That rate would rise to $5.50 per hour by 2012.

The industry’s bad jobs hurt more than just workers; they harm society, Oliva said. Low wages and lack of job security lead to increased reliance on social-assistance programs, an indirect subsidy to employers engaging in poor practices. For example, ROC reported that 26.5 percent of workers said they or a family member had visited an emergency room without being able to pay for treatment.

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Crisis Management Checklist

This checklist is an assessment tool for those responsible for developing a crisis management plan for their company. If you are able to answer the following questions and complete the following information, you will have begun the process of developing your own customized blueprint for crisis management. Begin to gather materials into a three-ring binder as you customize the plan to your organization.

Crisis Management Checklist (16)

_

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Crisis Management

Crisis Management is the process of surviving, containing and bringing order to any natural or man-made traumatic incident. It includes planning, recognition, assessment, emergency response, intervention and follow-up procedures.

Members of Restaurant Success Monthly can download a comprehensive Crisis Management Planning guide by clicking here

Here are 12 steps that can get you started in developing a plan of action for your establishment.

• Assemble a team. In a small restaurant this might be the owner and chef, but two heads are better than one.
• Put together a list of emergency names and contact numbers and post it by the phone. This should include team members, the health department, inspectors, fire department or any other agencies you feel might be involved in investigating an outbreak. Clearly identify who the official spokesperson will be.
• Develop step-by-step plans of action.
  Here is an example of what you should have in your crisis management plan for food borne illness:
  • Fill out a foodborne illness report form when a customer calls with a complaint.
  • Isolate the suspect food.
  • Save samples of the food for laboratory testing.
  • Prevent anymore of the suspect food from being sold.
  • Prevent suspect employees from handling the food.
  • Contact team members.
  • Contact your local health department or inspector.

  You should take the time to map out steps like this for any and all potential crisis your business might face. examples: robbery, public employee misconduct, fire, weather related events, etc.

• Decide beforehand:
  • Who will take charge of managing the crisis?
  • Who should be told about the crisis?
  • Who will your official spokesperson be?
• Develop a list of questions and answers for the media.
• Write a sample press release. Have a hard copy and a computer disk in your crisis kit.
• Assemble a list of local media contacts to call for a press conference or briefing only if it becomes necessary, i.e., you’re getting calls from the media and they need answers!
• Develop a list of do’s and don’ts on dealing with the media.
• Be sure your spokesperson is truthful and professional when communicating with the media.
• Include instructions on communicating with your employees. Provide them with information on their role in the situation and dealing with the media.
• Assemble all information in a notebook and keep it in a location for ease of use.
• Test out the plans by running a simulation.

While this is clearly more work on your part, in the long run if you would have a crisis such as a foodborne illness outbreak in your operation this plan could be the difference between staying in business or going under!

Source: Food Safety Illustrated, vol.1, issue 1/Winter 2001

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GOOGLES Free Tools Every Restaurant Needs to Use

Here are some of the free google resources I mentioned in a recent Restaurant Marketing Planner Call:

Unlock your local business listing on Google. It’s free. Click Here

• Manage your local listing
  Edit the content of your Google listing, add it for the first time, and delete old locations. Make sure your information is correct, and see it on your Place Page.
• Engage potential customers
  More people search locally on Google than anywhere else. Show them coupons, add videos and photos, and even post real-time updates.
• See the results
  Log in anytime to see how many times people have viewed your listing, what actions they took, and where they came from in your local area.

Here is how you can be listed Page 1 in Google New! Create a public profile page

Set up Google Alerts so anytime your restaurant or catering company is mentioned in a web posting you know about it and you can manage your online presence. http://www.google.com/alerts

Googles Favorite Place Program – Google recently sent to one of my restaurants the attached information and a sticker that goes on the front door.  The sticker, see attached, goes on your front door and people that visit your restaurant can scan the black bar code type thing and it immediately loads there phone with all your business information as listed on google.

Googles Favorite Place (7)

Letter From Google (6)

Other FREE Resources I recommend from Google:

YouTube -
Yes Google owns YouTube.  I recommend having your own channel and recording a few quick videos about your restaurant. Examples: A video tour, showing your place on a busy day (I say on a busy day, because no one wants to go to a restaurant unless others like to go there)

Another good video strategy is to have quick videos about covering your frequently asked questions. example: What type of food do you serve?  What is the best time to come? What is your specialty? etc.

Google Docs – a great place to share documents and spreadsheets online that you share with your team.  It has features that allow you to work on a document and save with changes online so others can access it from anywhere with an internet connection.

Create and share your work online

Google Calendar -   Organize your schedule and share events with friends
With Google’s free online calendar, it’s easy to keep track of life’s important events all in one place.

My last little tidbit – Have a document with all your restaurant information in it so you can easily load it into online directories and tag it (use Keywords) to get your information easily found by search engines.

How do you use Google services? Add questions & suggestions

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Video Blog: What to have in Your Restaurant & Catering Operating System

Video Blog

This video is part of a series of videos where I, Jonathan Munsell, answer questions and offer hard hitting comments that you can use to improve your restaurant immediately!

If you are seeing this you probably don’t need to go to RestaurantGoldMine.com to get hooked up with me. If you are not already a member of Restaurant Success System or Restaurant Success Monthly a good place to start is by grabbing some FREE information by clicking HOME and then click on the Free Kit Image to the right.

What to have in Your Restaurant & Catering Operating System

Hey it’s me, Jonathan Munsell, the founder and creator of Restaurant Success Systems.  I want to talk about systems as a whole and all the little, itty, bitty things that go into a system for a restaurant.

The Restaurant & Catering Assessment is one of the tools that we use.  This actually is available to you online if you go to http://restaurantsuccessmonthly.com/restaurant-start-up-members-only and you can see that it’s up a big checklist that’s got about 50 different items on it; everything from your people to your systems in general and how you handle quality, marketing, service, safety and sanitation, your financials, and your management.

When I started out in this business I didn’t start out with this.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to go to a website and download it.  It’s actually free here: http://restaurantsuccessmonthly.com/restaurant-start-up-members-only and you can download it and you can even fill it out and send it to me and I’ll happily talk to you and talk through what you need to focus on maybe first because that’s an important thing is that you make sure you focus on the first things first and the things that are going to help you get ahead.

But with this, you can create your own systems.  Even without this, if I had to give you a piece of advice to build your own systems in your restaurant, the thing you want to do is start with maybe the most frustrating thing or maybe the most important thing.

I’ll give you an example:  Maybe you’re having trouble getting the deposit to the bank.  All you need to do is take the time – and you can do this from everything from answering the telephones to how food is prepared; just sit down and write out line by line exactly how you want it to go.

We go to the safe and we open up the safe and we take out the money; we write that we took the money out.  They money goes to the bank.  Once the bank gives us back our receipt, we bring the receipt back and we staple it with our paperwork.

Just write all that stuff down and do that for everything in your restaurant.  Start with the things that are the most frustrating or the most challenging or the things that you’re having difficulty with and then work your way backward to the things that are very simple.

You’ll find if you do this and even if you did just one system a day, at the end of the year you’d have 365 of them.  So keep in mind that whenever you’re writing a system to make it very simple.  So it’s the KISS principle:  Keep It Super-Simple and just write down exactly what you want to happen.

Then the thing you can do is you can share this with the people in your organization and you can ask them, “How are you handling this?  Here’s the deposit procedures; is this exactly what happens?”  Let them respond and give you some feedback and then you’re getting buy-in on how this stuff is created.

Let your people know that you’re going to start the process and do it and just get all this stuff documented because you’re going to find at the end of the day that if you can keep getting these things off of you and if you can keep getting other people to understand what you’re doing, your restaurant is going to run a lot better and it’s going to run smoother and you’re going to have better days and you’re not going to feel like you’re fighting it out.

Then you can start really delegating things and then there’s no reason that they don’t do them the way that you expect.  You have a piece of paper; what part of that didn’t they understand?  So start documenting the systems in your restaurant even if they’re very specific to your restaurant.  Other than that, grab this Restaurant Success Assessment and go through it and figure out exactly what you do need to put into place.

That’s my tip for you today.  If you enjoyed this and you’d like to receive 20 more of the top questions that people ask me about the restaurant business, and you can also get a copy of my free report, How to Make any Restaurant into a Super-Powerful Cash Machine, which has ten secrets not included in any of the videos about the characteristics of a successful restaurant owner, go to www.restaurantgoldmine.com.

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Expert Interview: Jonathan Munsell & Brian Calderone talk Mystery Shopper Programs

A Mystery Shopper Program Is Far More Effective Than Any Other Any Other Evaluation To Keep Your Restaurant Operating at Peak Performance …

…Even If You Are Not There

Brian Calderone of Goodwin & Associates Shares All The Details Of A Proper Mystery Shopping Program

If you’ve ever wondered how your restaurant really comes across to everyone who visits, you need to check out this Expert Interview with Brian Calderone of Goodwin & Associates.  Jonathan is all about having great Systems in place, from Operations to Marketing.

Your restaurant needs to be tip top in order to keep up with and surpass the competition.  Through this interview, you’ll see how you can find out:

• How do my employees really answer the phone?
• Are my guests pleased with the service of my employees?
• Is my bar pouring profits away?
• What is the initial impression that the guest receives?
• Is the food being delivered properly and are the deliveries always on time?
• Is the quality of my food as superb for each guest as it is for me?
• Are the employees always upbeat, friendly, helpful and actually working?  Even when I’m not around?
• Is my catering crew really taking care of the clients we have in the manner I expect?
• Are we consistently doing the ‘right’ things for our guests?
• Is the restaurant clean?
• Are my employees taking away some of my profits?
• Is the food being presented well, including catering presentations and packaging?
• How do the guests feel about the overall experience and value?
• Is the food always fresh?

Jonathan and Brian will talk about the best way to maintain quality in your food, staff, atmosphere – every aspect of your restaurant.  You’ll see that every level of the restaurant needs to have a system like the guest feedback and mystery shoppers as well as having it be affordable!  So much of it can be done online and you’ll have reports where you can check on trends and be able to make changes to the template yourself.

You’ll want to say “Check … PLEASE!”

Goodwin & Associates offers a variety of services that “check” on things for you such as managing recruiting, staff feedbacks, safety food audits, exit interviews and mystery shopping.  They are trained professionals who will give you more accurate reporting than your friends could possibly do for you.  Having immediate follow up with your guests and giving them some sort of bounce back will really work!  Having a third party involved helps the guests, or employees, feel more able to share and you’ll have honest feedback.  By changing your focus, you’ll be able to see what needs to be done to make a difference in your revenue.

Keeping your focus sharp,

Jonathan

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Three Critically Important Steps for Success

By Stephen C. Thomas

There are many steps to success. I suppose if you listed them all there might be hundreds is you counted all the experts and all their suggestions. I think that there are three critically important steps for success. Without these three, your chances are slim!

Believe in what you want.

You have to believe that the task you want to accomplish is achievable and worthwhile. If you do not believe that what you want to do is within your ability to achieve or that it is not something that you should be wasting your time on then stop right now. You have little chance of ever being successful.

Now the goal in mind may not be something that you personally want to do, it might be something from your boss, but if you cannot find some way to believe in it, you are doomed.

If you do not believe it is something that you can ever do, if it seems unreachable, then you have little chance of reaching it. You will constantly defeat yourself with negative thinking about how no one could ever do what you have in mind to do.

Our thoughts and our beliefs are two thirds of the factors that create our realities. If we believe that something is impossible and we think it is impossible, then for us, it is impossible. Henry Ford said that whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right.

You must put action behind your belief.

I said that belief and thought were two thirds of what creates our reality. Action is the final third. You can believe something is true, something is achievable, until you are blue in the face and if you put no action toward that goal, it will most likely never happen.

Some people who are believers in the law of attraction think that all they have to do is put their order out into the universe and the cosmos, like an eternal bell boy will make it happen. Good luck! We have to work for the things we want. Even if it is something as simple as reaching out your hand to take it, you have to put out some effort.

If you believe that what you want to do is within your ability to do, then you must not only plan for how you are to accomplish this feat, you must put those plans into action. You have to put some effort into getting where you want to be. You have to have some backbone, not just a wishbone.

Self Discipline

The last thing you need is self discipline. You have to be strong enough to take the action needed. You have to be able to face the small failures, and yes there will be some, and go on. You have to be able to be strong enough to work past the obstacles that you will meet. Think about it! Have you ever done anything that did not have a few hurdles to jump over?

This discipline might be in a schedule that you refuse to miss or a plan or task that must be carried out before you sleep. It might be the routine of saying over and over to yourself what it is you want to do and how you will not let anything stop you. Without self discipline, you will crumble at the first sign of difficulty. Strengthen your resolve to see the task done!

There you have it! The three critically important steps to success in anything you want to do are belief, action and self discipline!

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